I sat against the cushions, face flushing, the blood pulsing through my head. ‘What are you saying?’ My mouth was dry, my tongue felt swollen.
‘What am I saying, Mahu? I am quoting the old adage, “it’s a wise man who knows his own father”.’ He smiled at me.
I grasped my dagger, but let my hands fall away.
‘You will not be a martyr, God’s Father Hotep, struck down in your garden by Akhenaten’s assassin — that’s how you would like it to read.’ I controlled my fury. ‘What does it matter where we come from, who is our father or our mother or where we are going?’
‘That’s what I like to hear, Mahu, the voice of the soothsayer. Tell me.’ He sipped from the wine cup and refilled it from a jug shaped in the form of a goose’s head. He mingled a little powder from a pouch next to the jug. ‘Tell me, Mahu, what will you do if Akhenaten turns against you?’
‘Why should he?’
‘It could happen.’ Hotep stirred the wine with his finger. ‘He’ll have his head now, Mahu. There will be no one to stop him, not for the present but,’ Hotep’s eyes creased into a smile, ‘I have done what I can for the future.’ He picked up the wine cup, toasted me and drank deeply. ‘Please go outside for a while, then return. You’ll find I am gone. The Great House can publish how I died peacefully in my sleep. Go on, Mahu, get out!’
I rose.
‘Mahu! I am sorry — I mean about your mother, yet I have told you the truth. I made two mistakes about you. I should never have left you in the hands of that hideous woman Isithia. I wouldn’t have put her in charge of a dog.’ He grinned. ‘But, there again, you know all about that.’
‘And the second mistake?’
‘I truly underestimated you, Mahu, and so has Akhenaten!’ He raised his cup in one final toast. ‘I’ll be waiting for you in the Halls of the Underworld!’
Kemet Meer — Egypt is happy
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Chapter 16
Such songs rang through Thebes: all along its avenues, narrow twisting streets and across the broad, seething river into the Necropolis. The paean echoed around the tombs of the dead and up beyond the great brooding peak where the Goddess Meretseger had her home. The song of the Aten was everywhere. On shopfronts, on stalls, carved on the pylons and temples, displayed on their banners and pennants. Akhenaten had come into his own. He had broken with convention and, dressed in all the glorious war regalia of Pharaoh, processed solemnly through the city. Nefertiti, in the chariot beside him, received the plaudits of the crowd. There was none of the usual pomp, the clashing of cymbals, the rattling of sistra, the clouds of incense or the songs of the Divine choirs. No priest went before him. Only Akhenaten in all his magnificent glory, Master of Thebes, Ruler of Egypt, against whom no one dared raise a hand. The news of Hotep’s death and the disappearance of Shishnak were warning enough. Akhenaten, together with Ay, ensured that every vacancy, every position of power in both the Great House and the temples were held by their friends and allies.
Akhenaten wished to prove how he feared nothing. He insisted that the imperial bodyguard not accompany him on his royal progress, the roaring crowds being held back by a dangerously thin line of foot soldiers from the Seth and Anubis regiments.
‘I put my trust in the Aten,’ Akhenaten had boasted.
We had all bowed and nosed the ground before him, though my confidence in the Aten was not so great. I had the side streets packed with mercenaries, and master bowmen from the Syrian company on the tops of houses and palaces, as well as barges of marines along the river between Karnak and Luxor just in case the power of the Aten might fail.
On day thirteen in the fourth month of the Growing Season, year five of his Co-regency, Akhenaten held a sumptuous meal in the great Banqueting Chamber at Malkata. He had been absent for about three weeks, leaving us to scurry about to ensure all was well whilst he processed solemnly upriver to the place of the Aten. On his return he made the decision to turn Egypt on its head, to make a new beginning. First we feasted in those glorious chambers. The silver and ebony inlaid tables groaned with the gold cups, plates and bowls displaying small irises and water lilies. An imposing procession of servants from every part of the empire, male and female, garbed in pure white linen, served red cabbage, sesame seeds, aniseed and cumin in order to create a great thirst to be quenched by the coolest beer, Hittite wines and the best from Pharaoh’s vineyards in Egypt and Canaan. After this came roast geese, haunches of calf and gazelle steaks adorned with ham frills, all roasted over wood with bowls of blood gravy and dishes of every type of vegetable. We ate and drank our fill, whilst the Orchestra of the Sun played sweet music and the divine choir chanted hymns to the Aten.
Once the servants withdrew, the gilded doors were locked and secured, the oil lamps freshened, and more wine served. Ay called the revellers to order. We were all present — Nefertiti, Tiye, Horemheb and Rameses, Pentju, Huy, Meryre, Maya and the newcomer, Tutu, who had won the full support of Ay. Tutu had been promoted to the rank of Chamberlain and First Servant of Neferkheprure-Waenre, Akhenaten’s new throne-name translated literally as ‘The transformation of Ra is perfect, the unique one of Ra’. Nefertiti also had a new name, being called Nefernefruaten meaning ‘Beautiful are the beauties of Aten’.
Ay began the proceedings. For the first time we heard Akhenaten’s vision of the Godhead, himself as well as his future intentions. I can still recall Ay’s powerful voice rolling through the chamber. First he began with a hymn.
On and on he went. One line, I remember, pricked my ears.
‘You are in our hearts but no one knows you except your son Neferkheprure-Waenre …’
Most of this hymn was drawn from chants devised by other temples. Ay paused, wetted his throat and continued, his voice no longer so sing-song. He was now acting as the King’s mouth, proclaiming the King’s words.
‘Look, I am informing you regarding the forms of other gods: their temples are known to me, their writings learned by heart. I am aware of the primeval bodies. I have watched them as they ceased to exist, one after the other, except for the god who begot himself by himself, the Glorious Aten.’
I glanced along the table. Most of the guests had drunk too deeply to be taking note, but Horemheb, sat next to me, had a fierce scowl on his face.
‘As for Thebes,’ Ay continued, ‘and the things that have been done here,’ his voice rose to a chant, ‘they are worse than the things we heard in year four of our reign, worse than the things that we heard in year three of our reign, worse than the things we heard in year two of our reign …’